Labor shared is labor halved and I am lucky enough to pass this week's blog to my brother-in-ink Daniel Grafton.
Here's the site:
http://danielgrafton.wordpress.com/
Thanks Daniel!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The Most Overlooked Writing Accessory Ever
Every writer knows there are must-haves: a good dictionary, Strunk and White's Elements of Style, reliable research material. The necessity of these and many others goes without saying. Then there are the less formal accessories that vary by writer: the proper pen, the stress ball, the bowl of peanut M&M's. Talking recently with a fellow writer, I was surprised to find that one of my hands-down, deal-breaking must-haves she has never used: the Dump Pad.
THE DUMP PAD
What is it? It's simply the greatest low-tech anti-distraction device ever created. Tell me if this sounds familiar to you. You sit down to write. Your cat bites your foot. You remember you need to buy more cat food or tomorrow she will not stop with a simple bite; she will devour you. You get up and make a shopping list. While standing at the counter, you see in the morning sunlight the ghastly shade of your dishtowels and berate yourself for not doing your laundry. The mail arrives and you remember you forgot to send out the cable bill. Without cable you can't watch the NOVA episode on the Eastern Cougar (or the Bachelor. I don't judge.) It's on tonight, right? Is today Thursday? You were supposed to call your friend about going out tonight…
Sound familiar? Enter the Dump Pad.
I keep it next to my writing station with a working pen. As my brain labors to kick into fiction mode, I stumble across dozens of fleeting thoughts, chores, mental dings that could derail me if I address them at that moment. Instead, I jot them down. They're not forgotten; they're not left behind. They will be dealt with afterwards. Knowing I have a record of them frees my imagination from my responsible mind's grip and creativity can commence.
Don’t lose your dictionaries or character bibles and, in the name of all things holy, don't lose the M&M's. But do yourself a favor – get a Dump Pad. You'll thank me later.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Good vs Evil - Getting Unstuck
Sometimes you get stuck. You like the story. You know it's one you can write but every time you tackle it, you seem to get a little more stuck. It's as if the story is on the other side of a thick glass door – you can see it but you're not getting through.
What to do? Should you bail on the whole project? I say only as a last resort. For one thing, throwing out ideas is kind of like breaking promises to yourself. Do it enough and your creativity will become suspicious of your intentions. Stories come to those who welcome them. Turn too many away and they will know you can't be trusted.
Try this instead. If you really believe the story is there and you just can't get a handle on it, try writing out a list of Good and Evil.
On the Good side, list all of the things you want to see in the book. Don't censor yourself. Don't be afraid of being too specific, too general or too juvenile. For example, for my current work-in-progress, my list includes such mastermind desires as "cool con man tricks" and "a really nefarious plot for the bad guys." I know what you're thinking – that's probably exactly what Faulkner and Dostoevsky aimed for too. Hey, this isn't the finished product. It's what you would really love to see in your story. (I have a few things on the list about my main character's inner journey as well, don't worry. I'm not a total mental four year old.)
The wisdom of being broad and optimistic on the Good side reveals itself when you start writing the Evil side. The Evil list contains all the fears, concerns and dreads you worry are keeping your story in the shadows. Don't include any "real world" stuff, like your boss commandeering your time or the prohibitive price of printer ink. This is just story time. My Evil list includes fears that my main character won't prove she has the chops to fight the bad guys; that the aforementioned nefarious plot will be obvious or threadbare; that I won't adequately express the coolness of the con man tricks.
The end result? By specifically listing the desired elements, I could focus on the fun I want to have writing this story. The Evils were all just fears of "not doing," easily conquered by, well, doing. My story felt stuck because I was holding back on the Good things, doling them out with a stingy hand as if too much of a Good thing would be dangerous.
Good vs Evil – If you're stuck in your story, try breaking it down to the basics. What would be on your list?
What to do? Should you bail on the whole project? I say only as a last resort. For one thing, throwing out ideas is kind of like breaking promises to yourself. Do it enough and your creativity will become suspicious of your intentions. Stories come to those who welcome them. Turn too many away and they will know you can't be trusted.
Try this instead. If you really believe the story is there and you just can't get a handle on it, try writing out a list of Good and Evil.
On the Good side, list all of the things you want to see in the book. Don't censor yourself. Don't be afraid of being too specific, too general or too juvenile. For example, for my current work-in-progress, my list includes such mastermind desires as "cool con man tricks" and "a really nefarious plot for the bad guys." I know what you're thinking – that's probably exactly what Faulkner and Dostoevsky aimed for too. Hey, this isn't the finished product. It's what you would really love to see in your story. (I have a few things on the list about my main character's inner journey as well, don't worry. I'm not a total mental four year old.)
The wisdom of being broad and optimistic on the Good side reveals itself when you start writing the Evil side. The Evil list contains all the fears, concerns and dreads you worry are keeping your story in the shadows. Don't include any "real world" stuff, like your boss commandeering your time or the prohibitive price of printer ink. This is just story time. My Evil list includes fears that my main character won't prove she has the chops to fight the bad guys; that the aforementioned nefarious plot will be obvious or threadbare; that I won't adequately express the coolness of the con man tricks.
The end result? By specifically listing the desired elements, I could focus on the fun I want to have writing this story. The Evils were all just fears of "not doing," easily conquered by, well, doing. My story felt stuck because I was holding back on the Good things, doling them out with a stingy hand as if too much of a Good thing would be dangerous.
Good vs Evil – If you're stuck in your story, try breaking it down to the basics. What would be on your list?
Thursday, December 30, 2010
7 New Year Resolutions
Who am I to not make New Year's Resolutions?
1. Stay the course. Yeah, my first resolution is an affirmation of the path I have already blazed in my life. (Let's start with the positive, shall we?) If ever there was a year that I stuck to my plan and stuck to my guns, 2010 was it.
2. Remember the lessons learned. Really. Those plans I stuck with? It wasn't easy and it took more than one false start. Don't be afraid to refer back to the writing journal to see where those pitfalls lay. This life is an open-book test.
3. Go another step out. If I pushed myself in 2010 to write better, more often and with more courage, let me take it a step farther in 2011. Maybe I won't up my word count but I can up my daring. I can take bigger chances with my plots and characters.
4. Work on new story ideas. I love to lose myself in a story. Blessedly I'm not afflicted (yet) with the urge to start a new story when my current story gets tough. The other side of that coin, however, is that when one story is done, I don't immediately start my next one. Maybe it's just how I write. But this year, I'm keeping a story file, with clippings and notes and fragments of story ideas so that when my current WIP is completed, I at least have something to poke through.
5. Try at least one new writing outlet. Currently I write novels and a short column for a quarterly magazine. This year I'm going to write something new – short stories, poetry, longer non-fiction. And submit it. Repeatedly, if necessary.
6. Connect with more writers. I love my writing community on Twitter, Yahoo and Facebook, as well as the WV Writers. This year, I'm heading to Matera, Italy for some new brainstorming ground. More writers mean more ideas, more encouragement, more inspiration. Find ways to be helpful.
7. Dare to suck. I'm polishing my Italian, working on my pathetic chess skills, dusting off my paintbrushes. This is just the beginning. It's a big world out there and I don't have to be the best to have the best time. If we only do what we're good at, we'll never know what we're capable of.
There, seven is a good number. I can live with it. How about you? Anything on here ring a bell with you? What would you add?
1. Stay the course. Yeah, my first resolution is an affirmation of the path I have already blazed in my life. (Let's start with the positive, shall we?) If ever there was a year that I stuck to my plan and stuck to my guns, 2010 was it.
2. Remember the lessons learned. Really. Those plans I stuck with? It wasn't easy and it took more than one false start. Don't be afraid to refer back to the writing journal to see where those pitfalls lay. This life is an open-book test.
3. Go another step out. If I pushed myself in 2010 to write better, more often and with more courage, let me take it a step farther in 2011. Maybe I won't up my word count but I can up my daring. I can take bigger chances with my plots and characters.
4. Work on new story ideas. I love to lose myself in a story. Blessedly I'm not afflicted (yet) with the urge to start a new story when my current story gets tough. The other side of that coin, however, is that when one story is done, I don't immediately start my next one. Maybe it's just how I write. But this year, I'm keeping a story file, with clippings and notes and fragments of story ideas so that when my current WIP is completed, I at least have something to poke through.
5. Try at least one new writing outlet. Currently I write novels and a short column for a quarterly magazine. This year I'm going to write something new – short stories, poetry, longer non-fiction. And submit it. Repeatedly, if necessary.
6. Connect with more writers. I love my writing community on Twitter, Yahoo and Facebook, as well as the WV Writers. This year, I'm heading to Matera, Italy for some new brainstorming ground. More writers mean more ideas, more encouragement, more inspiration. Find ways to be helpful.
7. Dare to suck. I'm polishing my Italian, working on my pathetic chess skills, dusting off my paintbrushes. This is just the beginning. It's a big world out there and I don't have to be the best to have the best time. If we only do what we're good at, we'll never know what we're capable of.
There, seven is a good number. I can live with it. How about you? Anything on here ring a bell with you? What would you add?
Friday, November 19, 2010
The Mental Compost Heap
Okay so you might have noticed a slight gap in my posts. I'll give you the five cent tour of events: started a story, changed the story, changed it again, changed it back, started a new one, was told to go back to old one, banged head against wall and chucked it all. Started an entirely new project that roared to life like it was born in jet fuel and consumed three solid months of my life. A happy ending, yes?
Yes and no.
I'm thrilled with the finished manuscript, a thriller titled FLOWERTOWN. (More on that later.) When I had finished the edits, however, I noticed a distinct absence of words in my head. The writers among us know how unnerving that can be. There was no next story chattering, no characters nagging, no plot threads weaving through my now resting mind. The silence was only compounded by the diagnosis of nodules on my vocal cords that required me to stop talking, and therefore working, for two weeks. Now that, my friends, is silence.
What had happened? I looked back over the past months and saw how I had spent four solid months: working, writing, coughing, working, coughing, coughing, writing, working, writing, writing, coughing. And coughing some more.
Notice anything missing? READING.
Somehow amid all the creating and coughing and mundane work I had let the habit of reading slip away. As impossible as it seems, I had used up all my words.
And so, with two quiet uninterrupted weeks (and I won't lie, that didn't suck) I began to read. I read everything I could get my hands on: Steig Lawson, Robert Charles Wilson, Lawrence Block, Harlan Coben, Barbara Kingsolver, recipes for sour cherry chicken, Paris Review, a can of fried onions, CD liner notes. If it was printed I read it. As the stories, facts and delicious serving suggestions went in, I could feel the words, the styles, the phrases, the images, peeling off and piling up in that part of my mind that I mine for inspiration.
I've come to think of it as mental compost, the natural process of breaking down all the organic compounds of the world around us, especially those in the written word, into a thick, loamy fertile pile of goodness into which the next seed of an idea can burrow, sprout and become a living thing. I can already feel the heat and life returning to that overly tapped part of my brain, can feel it being replenished.
Have you ever run out of words? Or worked the words you have so hard that they become dry, sterile things? I've learned a valuable lesson. This garden I call my mind, as bizarre as it can be sometimes, needs a steady supply of mental compost. Now when I let my mind lay fallow for a month or two, I know all this reading is just replenishing the soil.
Yes and no.
I'm thrilled with the finished manuscript, a thriller titled FLOWERTOWN. (More on that later.) When I had finished the edits, however, I noticed a distinct absence of words in my head. The writers among us know how unnerving that can be. There was no next story chattering, no characters nagging, no plot threads weaving through my now resting mind. The silence was only compounded by the diagnosis of nodules on my vocal cords that required me to stop talking, and therefore working, for two weeks. Now that, my friends, is silence.
What had happened? I looked back over the past months and saw how I had spent four solid months: working, writing, coughing, working, coughing, coughing, writing, working, writing, writing, coughing. And coughing some more.
Notice anything missing? READING.
Somehow amid all the creating and coughing and mundane work I had let the habit of reading slip away. As impossible as it seems, I had used up all my words.
And so, with two quiet uninterrupted weeks (and I won't lie, that didn't suck) I began to read. I read everything I could get my hands on: Steig Lawson, Robert Charles Wilson, Lawrence Block, Harlan Coben, Barbara Kingsolver, recipes for sour cherry chicken, Paris Review, a can of fried onions, CD liner notes. If it was printed I read it. As the stories, facts and delicious serving suggestions went in, I could feel the words, the styles, the phrases, the images, peeling off and piling up in that part of my mind that I mine for inspiration.
I've come to think of it as mental compost, the natural process of breaking down all the organic compounds of the world around us, especially those in the written word, into a thick, loamy fertile pile of goodness into which the next seed of an idea can burrow, sprout and become a living thing. I can already feel the heat and life returning to that overly tapped part of my brain, can feel it being replenished.
Have you ever run out of words? Or worked the words you have so hard that they become dry, sterile things? I've learned a valuable lesson. This garden I call my mind, as bizarre as it can be sometimes, needs a steady supply of mental compost. Now when I let my mind lay fallow for a month or two, I know all this reading is just replenishing the soil.
Monday, July 5, 2010
3 Ways to Get Unstuck
We've all been at that point where you know, long term, where the story is going but between you and long-term, there is a vast wasteland of white page and you can't get word one written. What to do? Here are three things that might work.
1.Get to the action.
Right to it. Your current chapter ends with the action looming on the horizon and you're dying to get to it but there's all this other "stuff" that has to be explained and set-up and prepared before you get there. You know what? You're probably going to wind up cutting all that stuff anyway, so why not skip it now? Get to the part you're dying to write. Now, I'm not a fan of writing the action scenes and stitching them together because those winding paths between high points can take you in some interesting directions, but if you're itching for action, your reader probably is too.
2.Start a conversation.
When you're stuck in a plot line, your wheels tend to spin. You want forward motion but everywhere you look is nothing but mud and walls and plot-drop cliffs. Your characters are standing around looking nervous and/or bored wondering why you're not letting them do what they want to do. Ask them. Put two characters together and let them start talking. See what's on their mind. I once discovered the reason a scene was stalled out was because a secondary character was seriously pissed that his best friend had blown him off for a woman (and the plot) and was therefore refusing to do his part to continue the story. I set them down over a few beers and let the friend lose his cool and, lo and behold, my main character had the unhappy realization that he could be a self-absorbed prick. It was a nice touch of dimension that I wouldn't have really seen if I hadn't let them talk it out.
3.Write something completely insane.
True story: a friend was stuck deader than dead in the first third of her book. She could think of no logical way to jump start the next phase so she had a monkey fall out of tree onto her main character's head. In the middle of a city street, no previous mentions of monkeys, no apparent reason it happened. The character, understandably, screamed and swore and the monkey peed on her and ran off. After that, the character recovered and the story continued. Needless to say, the monkey scene was cut (after many hysterical readings of said passage) and the story continued. It may not work for you, but throwing in something nonsensical can take the pressure of deathless prose and breathless plotting off of your mortal shoulders.
We've all been there. I'd love any tips you could share.
1.Get to the action.
Right to it. Your current chapter ends with the action looming on the horizon and you're dying to get to it but there's all this other "stuff" that has to be explained and set-up and prepared before you get there. You know what? You're probably going to wind up cutting all that stuff anyway, so why not skip it now? Get to the part you're dying to write. Now, I'm not a fan of writing the action scenes and stitching them together because those winding paths between high points can take you in some interesting directions, but if you're itching for action, your reader probably is too.
2.Start a conversation.
When you're stuck in a plot line, your wheels tend to spin. You want forward motion but everywhere you look is nothing but mud and walls and plot-drop cliffs. Your characters are standing around looking nervous and/or bored wondering why you're not letting them do what they want to do. Ask them. Put two characters together and let them start talking. See what's on their mind. I once discovered the reason a scene was stalled out was because a secondary character was seriously pissed that his best friend had blown him off for a woman (and the plot) and was therefore refusing to do his part to continue the story. I set them down over a few beers and let the friend lose his cool and, lo and behold, my main character had the unhappy realization that he could be a self-absorbed prick. It was a nice touch of dimension that I wouldn't have really seen if I hadn't let them talk it out.
3.Write something completely insane.
True story: a friend was stuck deader than dead in the first third of her book. She could think of no logical way to jump start the next phase so she had a monkey fall out of tree onto her main character's head. In the middle of a city street, no previous mentions of monkeys, no apparent reason it happened. The character, understandably, screamed and swore and the monkey peed on her and ran off. After that, the character recovered and the story continued. Needless to say, the monkey scene was cut (after many hysterical readings of said passage) and the story continued. It may not work for you, but throwing in something nonsensical can take the pressure of deathless prose and breathless plotting off of your mortal shoulders.
We've all been there. I'd love any tips you could share.
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